Marketers: Is it time to take on the call center?

This week's BusinessWeek published an article Call Center? That's so 2004. Call center outsourcing is down from 85% of India's business process outsourcing in 2000 to 35% today. India is finding call centers to be the least profitable of the outsourcing business and the most difficult to operate. Read the article for more details.

Does this represent an opportunity to improve the customer experience? After all, when you take the time to a call center and wait for a human to answer the phone, you have a problem that's worth the trouble. When you are met with someone that cannot help you, your problem just got bigger.

This could be a win-win. In an early posting, Blogging and Customer Service, I point to a number of other bloggers talking about the impact of customer service on a brand including my favorite, an article from Pete Blackshaw, Consumer Affairs: The New Advertising Department. It's a service economy and no matter what your product is, the customer experience will dominant the word of mouth marketing about your brand.

While organizations have gone through improving operational efficiencies through deployment of enterprise applications, Internet based self service, and offshore services to reduce costs, have they also reduced the value of customer loyalty? The two things, cost cutting and quality customer service, do not work well together.

In today's connected world, word of mouth spreads fast, far and remains perpetual on the Internet for years to come. Marketers will continue to be challenged in promoting products that do not live up to their customers' expectations. Those fortunate enough to have a product that fulfills the brand promise and delivers a superior customer experience will have an opportunity to leverage this powerful communication vehicle to spread the word of their success. Those less fortunate, where the rest of the organization is not focused on the customer experience, but only focused on the bottom line will be hindered by the communication trail left on the Internet for all to view.

In this article, it suggestions that call center work may return to lower-cost areas of the U.S. I say - PLEASE! As a consumer I would appreciate having the phone answered in a reasonable time, by someone who can speak English well, and who can help me with my problem in a timely manner.

Marketer, take control over the customer experience. That's what people are going to talk about more than your latest ad campaign. If Pete is right, a portion of your $286 Billion ad spend may be better spent upgrading your call center than trying to get your voice through the fragmented media landscape.

Blog Post Frequency, Learning and Relevance

I have been struggling with what to post lately. Not due to lack of thought, but lack of time and selecting the most interesting topic area.

On one hand I have 5 different topics I think are interesting, but not necessarily in line with my typical topics. On the other hand every time I invest time exploring the blogging world, I find so many interesting postings to read I run out of time to create my own.

The interesting dilemma for a new blogger is that these two areas can create "writers block". I have two questions to pose to the more experienced bloggers:

1. Does your blog need to stay on topic?
2. How do you balance your time between listening and talking?

On question #2 above, I find a great deal of value in participating on other people's blogs. How do you share your collective thought process on your blog? Here are three recent examples of areas I have participated in:

A discussion with Shel regarding blogging adoption in other parts of the world, specifically Hawaii
A NYC VC's posting on the debate of the Long Tail
A suggestion to Scoble to do a video on "how to blog".

I have also invested many hours in reading blogs and listening to podcast to learn more about the collective conversation. It's diverse, and there is so much out there you could spend days/weeks/months absorbing information. Some of my recent favorites include:

The call to action for all marketing professionals written by Peter Blackshaw, Leading Change - Now!
A posting by Ann Handley on What's the Biggest Lie About Blogging?
And a podcast on Internet business mastery that begins with an education on the issue of net neutrality. (Anyone interested in keeping the Internet as an open platform available to everyone should learn more about this).

My point is that there is so much great content that many times I would rather listen than type. This leads to less frequent postings, but more value to me.

The other area I outlined in my opening paragraph is relevance. Given that my postings are mostly about the changing marketing world, I hesitate to share my thoughts on wine tasting, child rearing, team dynamics or consumer experiences. While I've seen some of the masters do it well such as this extremely random posting by Max Kalhoff regarding dry ice, I haven't reached the comfort level of putting these thoughts on the Internet and intermingling it with the otherwise marketing and blogging centric conversation. I suspect this comes with time.

I know some of my friends and colleagues that read my blog haven't ventured into blogging yet. Hopefully my journey gives you a glimpse at what's available and encourages you to get involved in the conversation!

Blogs and Podcasts

Podcasts are an excellent way to absorb the knowledge available on the Internet when you are tired of reading your computer screen. Here is a recent interview with Sharon Weinbar of BA Venture Partners discussing the opportunities available for entepreuners and investors in social media. She points out that this is a highly desirable investment area for VCs today and lays out several areas of opportunity including translation of apps to mobile devices.

Podcasting allows us to benefit from the experiences of others in a short, but content rich segment. It's a great compliment to reading your favorite blogs. You can do it while you work out, drive, or just sit and listen with a nice glass of wine. It's safer, and likely more productive, than all the yaking we do on our cell phones while driving! For marketers, I highly recommend subscribing to Jennifer Jones, Marketing Voices. An experienced marketing executive herself, she is creating great content around the changing marketing landscape.

Obnoxious Internet Marketing

Yesterday I was web surfing doing research for our new cell phone applications and found a number of obnoxious marketing techniques. Here are my least favorite:

Somewhere I visited (don't know where) opened a new window which I later discovered offering me a free Treo 700 smartphone. While I usually close these windows as fast as possible, I decided to explore this further. First I was asked for my email address which then took me to another page to give up address, phone number, age, etc. It was only in the fine print where I could find a link to the terms of the offer. It gave a lengthy disclosure including, "FreeProductVouchers.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change its Terms & Conditions at any time". Several scroll bars and disclaimers later, I closed the box and decided to no longer waste my time.

Then there's that bouncing box that screams at you "Congratulations you have won" until you just have to leave the site even if the content is interesting. I can't stand things jumping on the screen! How do you close that box?

After minimizing the window, I came to this window to type a posting and heard an ongoing buzzing sound that sounded like something was wrong with my computer. Keep in mind this is a brand new computer that I spent hours transferring files and setting up. After a minute of panic I found the above site also had a mosquito that buzzed even when I was not active in their window. That's just plain rude!

Another ad I really dislike is on the ClickZ site for OneUpWeb. I find the pink poodle and all the animation distracting. I don't want things flashing at me and jumping up and down while I'm trying to read. I like reading what Peter has to say and don't find the pink poodle to work well with Peter's words on marketing. This company markets to marketing people, I would expect a bit more class than a pink poodle.

While I understand that it's a challenge to get attention in today's world, I question whether these techniques work. My reaction is too ignore them, close the window, and avoid the brands that use them. I prefer the more professional tactics, such as those you find on the right side of a Google search.

In this noisy world, let's find a way to get our message across without jumping, bouncing, flashing and worst of all, buzzing. If anyone has data on the relative success of jumping ads, I would be interested in knowing whether this is effective or just a form of creativity I don't appreciate?

Information Overload * Keeping up with all the great CGM

As I get deeper involved in the conversation happening across the Internet, I am experiencing information overload. There are so many great conversations out there driven by so many talented people. How do you keep up with it all?

First, I set up my Google reader and subscribed to some of my favorite blogs. Daily I browse new content and go back and read my starred content. Here are some of my favorites of this week:

In the area of consumer generated media, one of my favorite quotes this week comes from Max Kaleoff "Marketers: Don't get burned by consumer generated media" where he is quoted in iMediaConnection saying, "You can no longer market a product that sucks". Isn't that what this is all about, honesty in marketing, honesty in delivery of the brand promise?

Shel Israel pointed to this posting by Douglas Karr where he shares his story of how he increased traffic to his site after changing the name. I think I'll go back to read Naked Conversations again.

Shel and Robert talk about how the Amazon recommendation engine is recommending their book along with The Long Tail and increased their rankings to #575. A great story of the power of influence and recommendation engines. By the way, I just bought The Long Tail as a result of this posting!

Scoble pointed me to Matt Cutts of Google who talks about the challenges of getting accurate metrics. Most methodologies have some bias and constrains the demographics of the viewers/readers/websurfers they address. Isn't there an opportunity to bring that all together into an integrated dataset? As I discussed in a previous posting, I still believe that getting data from Comcast, TiVO and their competitors would give a much more comprehensive and accurate assessment of viewers behavior than the age old Nielsen families.

I also enjoyed the most recent Marketing Voices by Jennifer Jones where she interviews Dave Balter, CEO and Founder of BzzAgent. David does a good job of explaining what's changed in the world of word of mouth marketing. After all, we have all been talking about brands for years, what's different? What's different is the ability to spread the word of mouth message quickly and that marketers have an opportunity to participate in the conversations like never before.

And last, to demonstrate that it's not just about CGM, I really enjoyed the recent BusinessWeek article Your Attention Please where the authors lay out the challenges and opportunities in the changing media landscape sharing specific stories including the innovation at BBC. A must read for all marketers. Several bloggers such as Peter Blackshaw and Andy Lark add their own thoughts on this topic.

The challenge I face is for every great posting you read, there are links to 3 or more other postings that also of interest (as demonstrated by the 13 links above). It's a large content universe with many relevant conversations for your area of interest. How do you keep up with it all? You can get lost in this media landscape and spend hours reading, learning, and participating in conversations relevant to your area of interest. For those that don't have the time this week, hopefully I pointed you to some that will interest you.

Professional relationships last longer than business cards

I feel truly blessed by the people that have contacted me since my announcement. People who worked for me, worked with me, vendors, partners, employees and colleagues from other companies I have worked for and with. Many offering to work for me again, some interested in talking about what they are doing to see if I'd like to join, some asking for career advice, and most telling me of the impact I have made and appreciating the energy I bring to an organization.

I have a sign in my home office that reads:

Success: to laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affections of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social conditions, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

If one measures success by this, I declare my life successful. Thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts with me. Stay tuned, the pool will get boring soon enough.

Here are some of my favorites excerpts from my email box:

Your bottomless well of enthusiasm, creativity, and confidence always kept things exciting for us. I will miss the rush of energy that you always bring into the room.

You're someone I respect a lot and believe in your talents.

I was delighted by the leadership and vision

I have been so impressed by your energy and focus

Would love do something together with you some day!

You'll be missed more than you can simply imagine :)

A New Adventure

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

Last Friday, July 14, started a new chapter in my personal and professional life. I have learned a lot from the last 2 years but now it's time for a new adventure. Thank you to all that contributed to my learning along the way.

This transition gives me the opportunity to pursue a dream. When I met my husband, Jeff, 12+ years ago he was an engineer and I was in sales. We collaborated on a product for distributed object-oriented technology and subsequently took three products to market and launched his, then, very successful consulting practice. Since that time I got sucked into the corporate vortex. I found people I wanted to work with, assignments to challenge me and opportunities to gain new experiences in new areas of business.

During this time, however, I have continuously wanted to find a way to build a business that could afford me the freedom to be at home with my 15 year old daughter before she leaves home. Two years ago when I left BearingPoint, I had intended to pursue this path but got excited about the opportunity to join Biz360 and didn't pursue further. At the time, we had built a cell phone application which we did not launch/take to market as I got wrapped up in my new responsibilities.

We have currently identified several additional applications that have promise. So the plan is to pursue this business further. To build mobile applications that can be downloaded to cell phones/pdas, marketed through word-of-mouth and consumer generated media. I am building the business plan now and hope to get our first application out by end of summer. My 15 year old daughter and her friends are a great source of ideas and we held our first brainstorming session last Friday night =)

More details to follow as our plans develop. For now, I'm enjoying putting on shorts and flip flops instead of suits and pumps. My goal is to get through the rest of the summer in my vacation attire limiting business clothes to no more than 2 per week. The pool is at 80 degrees and I'll have to decide whether to swim before or after lunch. I have worked for 30 years solid (started at 16 as a customer service representative for my father's company). This is a much needed break and an opportunity to evaluate what I really want to do with the rest of my career.

To my friends and colleagues at Biz360, carry the ball forward, best of luck to you, I'll be rooting for you poolside =)

Corporate Blogging and Reputation Management

There was quite a stir this week over a posting a summer intern made on Jeff Jarvis's blog on behalf of Dell. Personally I find the blog posting unbelievable, even for a summer intern. No matter what he thinks of Jeff and his postings this was unprofessional and bad etiquette under any guidelines. Richard Edelman called it "A Serious Case of Malpractice", well stated Richard.

The irony is that early that day Scoble posted a recommendation that there be a "two-week moratorium against saying anything bad about a new corporate blog" and was positive about Dell's attempt to participate in the conversation going on to offer design and marketing advice. This, too, was well stated. What I find refreshing about Robert's postings is he is fair and reasonable. He welcomes new comers to the blogging world and uses his readership to promote the good aspects of consumer media.

What I observed about this set of postings is that Dell has recognized the power of consumer media and is listening and participating. There is so much great information out there on a customer's experience with your brand, both your products and your service. How much money have marketers paid trying to collect this information in a traditional fashion and only been able to get a sampling? This is the marketers gold mine of customer data, but only if you want to hear the truth. Once you hear what is being said, you have the opportunity to respond. Using the power of blogging, you can share your plans to improve the areas that need improving and provide additional information to defend your brand's reputation. One of my favorite case studies on this is the story of Six Apart in the book Naked Conversations. Sorry you have to buy the book to get the story =)

It's too bad this intern had to get this started on such a bad note. Now Dell has to dig out further and has more damage to it's reputation. As for the summer intern that posted:

Chris Says:

July 11th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Hey Jarvis

I honestly think you have no life. Honestly? Do you have a life, or do just spend it trying to make Dell miserable. I’ve been working with Dell the past three weeks researching trashy blogs that worms like you leave all over that frigen blogosphere and I cant honestly say that Dell is trying to take a step towards fixing their customer service. They hire guys like me to go on the web and look through the blogs of guys like you in hopes that we can find out your problem and fix it. But honestly I dont think you have a problem Dell can fix. Your problem is you have no life.

Chris, the advantage of being a summer intern is that you get to try out possible career options to see what you want to do when you enter the workforce. May I suggest your reconsider yours, communications does not seem to be an innate skill of yours.

Measurement, Measurement, Measurement

Wow, it's been awhile since I've been here. What a great break. Everyone needs to completely disconnect and enjoy life once and a while. I noticed even Richard Edelman took some time off over the 4th and left his blog for over a week. It gives one prospective and an opportunity to think.

On the topic of measurement, I have been thinking about the article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week on Nielsen's plans to measure which commercials are actually watched and which ones are skipped over or channel changed. I would link to the article, but of course it's behind the user authentication where content providers still don't get the new world of media. Fortunately, Google News helped me find this article from the LA Times which describes their plans.

What I don't get about this plan is why TiVo or Comcast OnDemand don't provide this data directly since they have the device? Why do we need another device in a sampling of homes when the device that people use to fast forward or change channels is already smart enough to capture and report this data? Am I missing something?

In any case, it's obvious that Nielsen is trying to navigate the changing landscape of the digital world. They were smart buying BuzzMetrics so that Pete, Max and others can help them in the CGM space, but how well are they integrating it all together for marketers?

The challenge with marketing measurement today is that influencing your target market is a combination of activities that create awareness, preference, demand and eventually loyalty. Brand studies can give an indication of awareness and preference, CRM systems and online traffic can measure demand, and companies like Satmetrix can measure your Net Promoters. Companies such as MarketingNPV or MMA can bring all the metrics together for you in a scorecard that can help understand the effects of the marketing mix. But are we measuring the overall brand preference in the market?

I believe their is a great deal of work to do to pull all of these silo based measurement systems together and innovate on a brand preference measure. What creates brand preference, how does that translate to brand value, how does that translate to brand equity that translates to shareholder value. We can't measure marketing by the number of people that watch our commercials. We have to measure by the number of people that when given a choice, will select your brand.

Gone Sailing

I'm off for our annual sailing trip to the Delta. For those of you in the Bay Area and into boating, this is the boating party of the year. Thousands of boats gather for the fireworks display hosted by the Hilton Family off Mandeville Island. Here is a story from 2002 my husband wrote about the event, full of great pictures.

While we could have Internet access on the boat, we have chosen not to. It's a time to disconnect from the connected world we live in and connect with family and friends. We entertain ourselves the old fashion way by reading books, playing cards, talking about life, and just relaxing.

So for the next week I won't be blogging, but if you are at the event, you can find me aboard Bebe L'Amour.